Correcting Love

Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

                                                                                                                            John 13:34-35

Loving someone in the ways Jesus commands is so much more than a feeling. Feelings can come and go when someone pleases us or does not. Sometimes Christ-like love is an act of will and self-discipline. It means reaching out, when I want to turn away, and seeing the other person’s possibilities, when it is much easier to see reject the current bad behavior.

If we love as God loves, our love is unconditional, but that doesn’t mean always supporting the other person’s actions, no matter what. Jesus loved the people of God, their scriptures and their worship. But he cleansed the Temple in a display of faithfulness to God and grief over what their worship had become. (John 2) Scripture offers us many images of God’s grief over our sin.

Sometimes out of love, we grieve painfully what another person is doing or becoming. And, though it is harder for us to see it, we sometimes grieve people who love us. Are we willing to let someone love us in the name of Christ enough to let that person correct us? Are we willing risk loving someone enough to call him or her back to being the person we know God made them to be?

Receiving or giving correcting love requires great humility. We can be wrong about ourselves or someone else. I have never once enjoyed being confronted about myself and my actions, even out of love, but I’m thankful for the people who have loved me enough to risk doing it.

God’s peace,

Katie

We Can't Imagine

John 1:49 Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 

John 1:49

Nathanael had not been all that excited to meet Jesus. When Philip announced he had met the Messiah and he was Jesus from Nazareth, Nathanael  growled, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” But after a few moments in Jesus’ presence, he proclaimed Jesus Son of God and King of Israel. He was right, but there was so much he didn’t know. He didn’t know yet that this impressive man would ask him to leave home. He didn’t know this King would end up on a Cross. He couldn’t have imagined encountering Jesus after he rose from the dead. He couldn’t have imagined being a leader of the early Church or even that there would be one.

There is so much we don’t know about what will happen to us if we commit to follow Jesus. I didn’t expect to be a pastor, and I couldn’t have imagined the places and people I would serve after I became one. Sometimes my path has been joyous. Sometimes it’s been hard. It’s always been worth it. But, if I’m honest with myself, I have to admit that I have no idea where following Jesus will take me in the next year or even the next day. (How many times have I said, "Didn't see that coming when I got up this morning?")

If we commit to follow Jesus, we at least have to leave the door open to going places and meeting people we can’t imagine – and might not choose. What possibilities for the path ahead excite you? Which would make you fearful? What preconceived notions of what God will or won’t do with us do we have to lay aside? Maybe it was a good thing Nathanael didn’t know all that was coming. Maybe it’s a good thing we don’t.

God’s peace,

Katie

A Question from Jesus

John the Baptist was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. 

John 1:35-39

When Jesus notices two men walking behind him, he doesn’t offer them a theological pronouncement. Rather, he asks a question, “What are you looking for?” They respond with their own question, “Where are you staying?” which suggests they want to get to know him. Jesus welcomes them, answering, “Come and see.” Jesus invites them in. He wants to know what they are seeking.

If Jesus asked you what you are looking for, what would your answer be? Such a simple but direct question invites us to look deep within ourselves to find what we really long for. Jesus did not want to know the two would-be disciples, nor does Jesus want to know us, at surface level. 

If we are disciples, we seek to follow the Jesus who asks, “What are you looking for?” How many people in our lives would be blessed simply by knowing that someone wants to know their hopes and fears? As we invite people into our lives, they can “come and see” our victories and our struggles as we seek to follow Jesus. Who around us needs a word of invitation and a welcoming heart?

God’s peace,

Katie

Beginning Again

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.John 1:1-5 

It’s the beginning of the semester, not far from the beginning of a year, and I am beginning to blog again. “In the beginning” of all things, God spoke a Word to create the world out of Love, but God also created human freedom. All things came into being through God, but not all new beginnings originate in God. Somewhere, this very day, someone is planning a new way for one group of people to eradicate other members of the human family. Someone, somewhere is devising a new way to hack identities. Someone, somewhere (in many “where”s) is about to lure someone into a drug addiction. There is more darkness in more places than we can imagine. All our new beginnings have to take into account the temptations of darkness. We can make a beginning for ourselves – for our advancement, our comfort, our pleasure, with little thought of others. Or we can start a new beginning by asking God to shine light into our hearts and minds, so that our lives and what we do with them show forth the Light that is always coming into the world to conquer darkness.

Direct us, O Lord, in all our doings with your Holy Spirit, that all our works begun, continued and ended in you, may glorify your Holy Name, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

God’s peace,

Katie

Bringing the Dawn

“You, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Luke 1:76-79

At the beginning of this semester, I committed to blog twice weekly as a way to reach out to students at Baylor University, where I am the United Methodist campus minister. It appears that some non-students have followed along. Classes end tomorrow. So I will be taking a break until a new semester begins in January. Then I’ll post once a week. Twice weekly was way too ambitious, and I want to savor the scriptures.

I end this semester where I began, with the scripture from which this blog takes its name. Zechariah is praising God after the birth of his son, John the Baptist, who will prepare the way for the coming of Christ. His words remain part of Christian worship and are said or sung by many Christian communities at least once a week.

Kathleen Norris, a writer who often worships with Benedictines, has said that she sang this scripture for years before she realized “you, child” meant her. We can join in these words because we, too, are meant to be “prophets of the Most High,” who go before the Lord to prepare people’s hearts to receive Christ and to give them “knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.” Through us, the “dawn from on high” breaks in to shine in their darkness and guide them into the way of peace.

How better to prepare people’s hearts to receive God’s forgiveness than to give them our own? to demonstrate that it is possible to enter into the way of peace because we have? Maybe we haven’t fully entered in, but God is at work in us. As God’s tender mercy appears through us, dawn breaks, at least in one small part of God’s world. What a privilege to bear the dawn, however imperfectly.

God’s peace,

Katie

Gathered for Joy

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

Luke 1:39-45

After the angel told Mary she would give birth to the Messiah – and that her cousin Elizabeth, who was past childbearing age was six months pregnant – Mary “went with haste” to see Elizabeth. Many explanations have been offered for her trip.

Those of skeptical mind reason that Mary wanted proof that what the angel had told her was true. If Elizabeth were pregnant, then the promise to Mary could be trusted.

More than one task-oriented person has suggested Mary went to “help out.” Elizabeth was way too old to be pregnant. She needed someone to take care of her. That seems unlikely because Mary left (v. 56) just before Elizabeth’s baby was born.

What seems more likely is that Mary had just welcomed God to act in her life in an unimaginable way. God was breaking into history. The Messiah was at hand – and Mary would be his mother! Who could begin to understand what had happened to her? Only Elizabeth, who also had experienced an “impossible” act of God.

Elizabeth greets Mary with awe and joy. God is acting, and through them! After Elizabeth’s welcome, Mary bursts into a song of praise (vv. 46-55). The women celebrate with wonder what God is doing and that they are part of it.

Some have said that these women offer scripture’s earliest picture of the church – people gathered to rejoice at what God is doing and how they are part of it. What would it be like if we approached worship in the spirit of Mary and Elizabeth? We would have to take care to recognize the ways God is entering into the world and that God chooses to come among people through us – and then let ourselves be awed, humbled and joyous.

God’s peace,

Katie

Choosing Small

The angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. . . . With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” 

Luke 1:13-15, 17

Zechariah was an obscure country priest, who came to Jerusalem once a year to serve in the Temple. Inside this holy place, where no one else could see, an angel told him that his faithful prayer over decades had been heard. He and his wife, Elizabeth, would have the child for whom they had hoped so long. More than that, God was entrusting them to shape John (later called “the Baptist”) to be a great prophet, who would prepare Israel to receive its long-promised Messiah.

No one would have nominated Zechariah and Elizabeth for greatness. Sometimes we feel that way about ourselves. What we can do is small. Never does it seem smaller than when the end of a semester is bearing down, along with Christmas events and activities. How can we also prepare our hearts spiritually? But for the birth of Jesus, God chose “small.” Zechariah and Elizabeth had been faithful in small things. After God gave them John, they still probably looked little different from their child-rearing neighbors. In scripture, God consistently opts for faithful, often obscure, people over high-profile ones.

Christmas, of all seasons, is not a time to think big. It’s a time to join God in thinking small – seeking to give thanks faithfully for our blessings, offering our lives and tasks to God daily, looking for God in small moments of connection with others, and not asking of ourselves more than we can do. If God can choose small, so can we.

God’s peace,

Katie